On January 16 2011 15:44 CreditM wrote: Here's another one. Ab exercises do not help you get a six pack. We already have abs, we just need to get rid of the fat surrounding it. Ab exercises help strengthen abs, but it does not give you a six pack... got this from
This is common sense. Anyone who has done sit-ups can find out that they aren't getting abs anytime soon with ab exercises, if they have any common sense. But if they're stupid they will keep on doing these exercises thinking they are helping themselves.
it's certainly not hurting them to do ab exercises provided they are done properly.
yes, primarily abs are 'made in the kitchen' so to speak, but if you are already quite skinny (like, nerd-skinny) and have no abs, doing an ab workout will help your abs become more prominent provided nothing else changes. when i was skinnier, i did ab-x from p90x every other day (never skipped a day) and got "teh 6pakc" after 3 months while staying same weight/not reducing my diet. it's a combination of things; certainly the diet is the biggest factor here (but not the only one)
1. Regular medical check-ups are not good for you. At best they have no effect, at worst they're actually harmful.
2. Fever-reducing drugs (antipyretics with paracetamol) have no evidence supporting that they actually help you. In fact, fever is what's good for you although it might not feel like it.
3. If you're randomly checked for a disease and given a positive, and the doctor says it's 95% (or whatever number) certain you have the disease because the method gives 95% correct positives, he's wrong. If 1 in 1000 people actually have the disease, and the machine also gives a 5% false positive (as is common), the actual chance you have the disease is about 2% and you can sleep well until they can do further testing.
4. You can never know you don't have cancer. The testing is done on a sample of cells, not all the actual cells.
5. Placebos can work even if you know they are placebos.
Psychology:
1. Projective testing techniques are as factual as horoscope readings. This goes for any projective testing (including inkblots (Rorschach), sentence completion, etc.)
2. Adult behavior is not determined mainly by childhood experiences, especially subtle or repressed ones.
3. Your therapeut's degree and experience has no positive effect on how good therapy he gives.
4. Phobias and anxieties are not symptoms of a deeper disturbance.
5. Poor self-esteem is not the root cause for every type of failure or problem. If you want to change your behavior you don't have to (and should not) elevate your self-esteem first through illusions or other means.
Business
1. Greed is not the cause of fraudulent behavior. Bad incentives are.
2. The more "democratic" the company (the more people the upper management rely on), the more likely it is to resort to fraudulent behavior if things turn sour.
3. Brokerage firms that show more profit for their investors than others are not necessarily more skilled. Put 100 people on flipping coins and some would flip more heads than tails for a while, and claim they are more "skilled".
Sex
1. Contraceptives have a marginal (at best) effect on how many children are born.
2. Women don't want sex as often as men.
3. Animals didn't evolve sex and genders to reproduce.
4. Anti-polygamy laws do more to protect men than women.
Morals
1. All humans are not of equal worth. No one in the entire world acts that way.
On January 17 2011 09:46 Mayfly wrote: Psychology:
1. Projective testing techniques are as factual as horoscope readings. This goes for any projective testing (including inkblots (Rorschach), sentence completion, etc.)
I think this one is wrong. The TAT reaches validities of .30 and is, to my knowledge, the exception of the rule.
Sugar does not cause hyperactivity in children.[126] Double-blind trials have shown no difference in behavior between children given sugar-full or sugar-free diets, even in studies specifically looking at children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder or those considered "sensitive" to sugar. The difference in behaviour proved to be psychological
Just heard this on new episode of House. Cool coincidence
2. Fever-reducing drugs (antipyretics with paracetamol) have no evidence supporting that they actually help you. In fact, fever is what's good for you although it might not feel like it.
Sorry mate but paracetamol and antipyretics really do work. You just have to take the right dose.
2. Fever-reducing drugs (antipyretics with paracetamol) have no evidence supporting that they actually help you. In fact, fever is what's good for you although it might not feel like it.
Sorry mate but paracetamol and antipyretics really do work. You just have to take the right dose.
I don't think it says that they DON'T work, but rather it's their helpfulness that's being disputed. A fever is your body's response to an illness and is in fact helpful for fighting the illness. Taking drugs to reduce or eliminate your fever is therefore not helpful. It makes your immune system less effective.
What about a patient with a dangerously high fever? I'd rather risk a slightly compromised immune system than permanent brain damage.
Edit: Re- Placebos. There is no such thing as the placebo effect. The psychological effect that most people THINK is the placebo effect is actually much smaller, and rarely if ever measurable. The so-called "placebo effect" comes from the fact that most diseases resolve themselves with time, and their severity fluctuates with time. If a certain disease only lasts a 4-6 days and someone shows up on day three and gets a placebo, did the placebo alleviate their symptoms, or did their body alleviate them?
2. Fever-reducing drugs (antipyretics with paracetamol) have no evidence supporting that they actually help you. In fact, fever is what's good for you although it might not feel like it.
Sorry mate but paracetamol and antipyretics really do work. You just have to take the right dose.
I don't think it says that they DON'T work, but rather it's their helpfulness that's being disputed. A fever is your body's response to an illness and is in fact helpful for fighting the illness. Taking drugs to reduce or eliminate your fever is therefore not helpful. It makes your immune system less effective.
This guy gets it. Many bacterial and viral infections grow best within a certain temperature range, and an elevation in body temperature can often retard said infection.
Ergo, a WORKING anti-pyretic is a bad one.
Now, SockMonkey is also right. Fever over a temperature of around 102.1 degrees F, can cause tissue damage in vital areas, like the brain. In these circumstances, dramatic steps are often taken to reduce fever.
On January 17 2011 09:46 Mayfly wrote: 3. Your therapeut's degree and experience has no positive effect on how good therapy he gives.
Do you have evidence for this one? Degree sure, but I'd expect a therapist who has seen all sorts of patients to be better able to deal with a given random patient than one without any experience.
On January 15 2011 15:42 gogogadgetflow wrote: Lol Tasteless just said that milk causes mucous. I had never heard of it until I read it on the list of common misconceptions today - failure of our education system, clearly.
In a related note, Artosis said a few days ago that Elephants are not actually afraid of mice. Mythbusters prove that indeed they are [or at the very least will go out of their way to aviod them].
I have to say that Mythbusters test seems far more reliable than the one cited as a source on Wikipedie. They tested with wild elephants in a natural enviroment, the source for wikipedia is with domesticated cirkus elephants and tame mice and not on floor level but eye level.
While i like wikipedia, dont treat it as an absolute truth...
On January 15 2011 07:03 nepeta wrote: Dutch misconception: If you mess with a swan, it may get angry and break your arm with a stroke of on of its wings. Told to children to keep them away from swans, nest-guarding swans may hurt small children, but there has not been a single report of a swan breaking someone's bones, ever.
does happen in canada with our geese though those things are nasty
will you PLEASE take those assholes back? I live in upstate new york and canadian geese are everywhere. You can't even shoo them away because it's a felony .
One of the most common misconceptions: Irregardless.
If something is irregardless, it means you disregard that it is regardless. That's horrible english. Please, for the good of humanity, use the word regardless, and drop the ir.
Just read through that whole Wiki article. I feel much smarter in some regards - the 'alcohol doesn't actually make you warmer' thing was an eye opener.
Alcohol doesn't "make you warmer" but it does make you FEEL warmer.
It dilates your blood vessels making the outer skin feel more of the warmth from your blood, but it causes to you to cool down faster.
Not to mention that you care less that you're cold when you're intoxicated...
EDIT: Oh i just got to that part of the article, yea it says that...
Well, i "have heard" (so it must be true!) that when you come into a warm plce from a cold place, like if you get rescued from being lost in snow, alcohol will indirectly make you warmer. Same theory, dilutes the blood vessels meaning more blood in outer skin meaning more blood gets heated if you are cold in a warm enviroment.
Also that it helps preventing frostbite by getting more blood into the extremeties. Colder blood meaning colder core temperature but still.
On January 17 2011 09:46 Mayfly wrote: 3. Your therapeut's degree and experience has no positive effect on how good therapy he gives.
Do you have evidence for this one? Degree sure, but I'd expect a therapist who has seen all sorts of patients to be better able to deal with a given random patient than one without any experience.
I dont really understand this one... You mean a random guy with absolutely no education or experience regarding therapy is just as good as thoose with experience and education?
That sounds like some bull some "alternative therapist" has come up with to be honest.
1. Contraceptives have a marginal (at best) effect on how many children are born.
Are you saying this is a myth or that this is true? I dont understand... Of cource Contraceptives have a huge effect on child birth rates, maybe not in 3rd world countries but just take sweden as an example. Me and most of my friends have sex with our partner all the time and yet very few children are born. And if you look how it was for our grandparents they all had huge families since they also had sex all the time, but without any birth control this lead to children...
Most people believe that trees get most of their mass from soil. In fact, most of the mass of a tree is carbon taken out of the air (carbon dioxide). The soil merely provides some nutrients and is a negligible part of the actual mass of a tree.
1. Contraceptives have a marginal (at best) effect on how many children are born.
Are you saying this is a myth or that this is true? I dont understand... Of cource Contraceptives have a huge effect on child birth rates, maybe not in 3rd world countries but just take sweden as an example. Me and most of my friends have sex with our partner all the time and yet very few children are born. And if you look how it was for our grandparents they all had huge families since they also had sex all the time, but without any birth control this lead to children...
It doesn't have an effect on the likelihood of two people to produce a child, just an effect on the likelihood of a given sex act to produce a child. If you and your partner didn't want to have a child but had no access to contraceptives, you just wouldn't have so much sex, or you'd restrict it to oral/anal. By the same token, when you DID want to have a child, you just wouldn't use contraceptives. The only real factor that affects birth rate is how much people want to have a child. The availability of contraceptives just gives them more options for sex acts without child production.
1. Contraceptives have a marginal (at best) effect on how many children are born.
Are you saying this is a myth or that this is true? I dont understand... Of cource Contraceptives have a huge effect on child birth rates, maybe not in 3rd world countries but just take sweden as an example. Me and most of my friends have sex with our partner all the time and yet very few children are born. And if you look how it was for our grandparents they all had huge families since they also had sex all the time, but without any birth control this lead to children...
It doesn't have an effect on the likelihood of two people to produce a child, just an effect on the likelihood of a given sex act to produce a child. If you and your partner didn't want to have a child but had no access to contraceptives, you just wouldn't have so much sex, or you'd restrict it to oral/anal. By the same token, when you DID want to have a child, you just wouldn't use contraceptives. The only real factor that affects birth rate is how much people want to have a child. The availability of contraceptives just gives them more options for sex acts without child production.
Not necessary, there are plenty of people who enjoy having sex who doesn't want kids but will have sex anyway with or without contraceptive.
Hell, my sister is a walking prove that contraceptive helps reduced birthrate.
1. Contraceptives have a marginal (at best) effect on how many children are born.
Are you saying this is a myth or that this is true? I dont understand... Of cource Contraceptives have a huge effect on child birth rates, maybe not in 3rd world countries but just take sweden as an example. Me and most of my friends have sex with our partner all the time and yet very few children are born. And if you look how it was for our grandparents they all had huge families since they also had sex all the time, but without any birth control this lead to children...
It doesn't have an effect on the likelihood of two people to produce a child, just an effect on the likelihood of a given sex act to produce a child. If you and your partner didn't want to have a child but had no access to contraceptives, you just wouldn't have so much sex, or you'd restrict it to oral/anal. By the same token, when you DID want to have a child, you just wouldn't use contraceptives. The only real factor that affects birth rate is how much people want to have a child. The availability of contraceptives just gives them more options for sex acts without child production.
Not necessary, there are plenty of people who enjoy having sex who doesn't want kids but will have sex anyway with or without contraceptive.
Hell, my sister is a walking prove that contraceptive helps reduced birthrate.
When you are talking about a whole society though, the percentage of unintended to intended births is very low. Also in the real world for the most part a lack of availability of contraceptives is strongly correlated with a more conservative world-view vis a vis sex which also tends to reduce the number of unintended pregancies in a given society just as contraceptives would.
EPT
those things are nasty
.
